Lavish 'fairy' pays some kids $50 a tooth

Sunday

Sep 1, 2013 at 12:01 AMSep 1, 2013 at 2:24 PM

NEW YORK - Kelly Bird Pierre knew the world had changed when she heard what the Tooth Fairy was giving out these days. The 39-year-old educator from South Orange, N.J., used to get a quarter whenever she lost one of her own baby teeth. But when her daughter Oona and son Jacques went through the same phase, reports from their schoolyard buddies swiftly got back to her: $3, $5, even $10 a tooth.

NEW YORK — Kelly Bird Pierre knew the world had changed when she heard what the Tooth Fairy was giving out these days.

The 39-year-old educator from South Orange, N.J., used to get a quarter whenever she lost one of her own baby teeth. But when her daughter Oona and son Jacques went through the same phase, reports from their schoolyard buddies swiftly got back to her: $3, $5, even $10 a tooth.

Pierre was shocked. “A dollar still seems reasonable to me,” she said.

Pierre and her parental peers had better get used to tooth inflation, because a new survey shows just how dear a baby tooth has become. The national average is now $3.70 per tooth, up 23 percent in a single year and 42 percent in just two years, according to a study that credit-card company Visa will release today.

“Tooth Fairy inflation clearly is surging,” marvels Jason Alderman, Visa’s senior director of global financial education. “It is due to a combination of things: one is a reflection of an improving economy, and that parents feel they can afford to be generous in small areas.

“The other real driver is parental angst. It is very hard for us to say no to our kids.”

Apparently so: For a full set of 20 baby teeth, at the going rate, that works out to $74. Especially for a young child, that is a serious sum.

Indeed, some Tooth Fairies — or their parental representatives — are taking things to an extreme. Some 6 percent are leaving more than $20 a pop, and 2 percent actually give a whopping $50 or more for a single tooth.

“That’s shocking,” Alderman says. “I was flabbergasted when I heard that. After all, they are not donating bodily organs.

“I think the Tooth Fairy is suffering from irrational exuberance. She wants to be the best one on the block.”

At such lofty amounts, the question becomes about whether those children are actually being done a disservice. Too much cash being left under their pillow at night, and it starts to feel like overindulgence.

“I think the amounts have gone up because we feel guilty about our parenting,” says Neale Godfrey, chairman of the Children’s Financial Network and author of books such as Money Doesn’t Grow on Trees: A Parent’s Guide to Raising Financially Responsible Children.

“We are not spending as much time with our children as we would like, and so we substitute money for time.”